Nov 16, 2011

Stop Censorship Day

Today, the US House Judiciary Committee has a hearing on the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA. The text of the bill is here. This bill would strengthen copyright holders' means to go after allegedly infringing sites at detrimental cost to the freedom and integrity of the Internet. As a result, we are joining forces with organizations such as the EFF, Mozilla, Wikimedia, and the FSF for American Censorship Day.
Part of this act would undermine the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act which would make sites like reddit and YouTube liable for hosting user content that may be infringing.

This act would also force search engines, DNS providers, and payment processors to cease all activities with allegedly infringing sites, in effect, walling off users from them.

This bill sets a chilling precedent that endangers everyone's right to freely express themselves and the future of the Internet. If you would like to voice your opinion to those in Washington, please consider writing your representative and the sponsors of this bill:

Lamar Smith (R-TX)
John Conyers (D-MI)
Bob Goodlatte (R-VA)
Howard L. Berman (D-CA)
Tim Griffin (R-AR)
Elton Gallegly (R-CA)
Theodore E. Deutch (D-FL)
Steve Chabot (R-OH)
Dennis Ross (R-FL)
Marsha Blackburn (R-TN)
Mary Bono Mack (R-CA)
Lee Terry (R-NE)
Adam B. Schiff (D-CA)
Mel Watt (D-NC)
John Carter (R-TX)
Karen Bass (D-CA)
Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL)
Peter King (R-NY)
Mark E. Amodei (R-NV)
Tom Marino (R-PA)
Alan Nunnelee (R-MS)
John Barrow (D-GA)
Steve Scalise (R-LA)
Ben Ray Luján (D-NM)
William L. Owens (D-NY)

I find it completely fitting that the only law that can pass with bipartisan support is one that advocates censorship and oppression.

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